BEST – Better Safety in Traffic

BEST is a five-year research and development program under the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA).

The purpose of the program is to assess the potential for reducing the numbers of fatalities and seriously injuries; in other words, making assessments and calculations of where, or in which domains we can expect to gain the greatest returns on our road safety efforts in the coming years.

In addition to the overarching potential assessments, the following two thematic areas are investigated:

How to reduce the extent of speed-related accidents/injuries?

How to meet the challenge associated with more pedestrians, cyclists and public transport in cities and urban areas?

The project started in January 2013.

Background

Since 1970, the number of fatalities and serious injuries in traffic has shown a positive trend, despite a large increase in traffic. A distinctive feature of road safety work in Norway is that many different means have been used in relation to road users, vehicles and the road itself. A broad range of agents has carried out these measures, and their combined efforts have had positive results.

An ambitious road safety goal has been set in the Norwegian National Transport Plan (NTP) for the period 2014–2023. By 2024, the number of fatalities and seriously injured is not to exceed 500. In order to achieve this, measures with documented positive effects will continue to be used, but we will also have to develop new measures and angles of approach in our road safety work.

Some challenges we face

In the years ahead, urban traffic growth is expected to take the form of more users of public transport, more pedestrians and more cyclists. At the same time, new vehicle technology will make more driver assistance systems available. We also see that new generations have different user habits when it comes to new technology – also when it comes to driving. We believe that companies and organisations have an unexploited potential in their own health, environment and safety work for safeguarding their employees’ business travel.